After three years of continual back-and-forth with a bank over a mortgage adjustment, one would think there’s nothing that bank could do to surprise you. And then it goes and sends documents containing information that even an inept ID thief could use to rob you blind.

Luckily for one woman in Colorado, the person who received mail intended for her was not an ID thief, but instead a good and responsible human being.

“When he called he told me, ‘I don’t want you to think this is a prank,”” the woman tells CBS Denver.

This wasn’t just a case of the mailman delivering her mail to a neighbor. No, the person calling was thousands of miles away in Massachusetts.

And he didn’t have to do any digging on Google to find out how to contact her, because not only did the documents contain her entire loan payment history, but also her account number, full name, address, and phone number.

In a statement, Chase claims it “take[s] the protection of an individual’s information very seriously,” and calls this an “isolated incident.”

The bank rep also says “We immediately retrieved the document,” except — unless there are multiple copies of it out there — it didn’t.

No, all Chase did was send a letter to the other customer asking to return the documents. Rather than do that, the Massachusetts man sent both the document and that letter to the Colorado woman.

It sounds like Chase has been giving this poor woman the runaround for three years – she says she can’t count the number of times she’s had to fax the same info to them over and over. Like the previous commenter I’m not a lawsuit advocate, but in this case I think she should initiate legal action to at least the amount of her outstanding mortgage. All Chase is offering is one year credit monitoring……cheap bastards.

If it truly is an isolated incident, then Chase needs to identify the person that handled this manually. Computers don’t do isolated incidents … they do as programmed (which in banks is very frequently misprogrammed). Then that person needs to be reprimanded by having 3 months of their pay credited to the Colorado woman’s account along with her loan modification immediately granted.

Computers actually do do isolated incidents. I’ve seen enough of them to know. They don’t happen everyday, but they happen. I think suing is extreme, but to each his own, cause she has a case and she more than likely will win something.

” Then that person needs to be reprimanded by having 3 months of their pay credited to the Colorado woman’s account…”

So you are advocating for breaking labor laws and holding the employee PERSONALLY responsible? Is that really your position? So if an employee makes a mistake, they should pay out of their pocket? I hope you are perfect. I won;t even get into the fact that is is ILLEGAL to take the employees pay for something like this.

My wife got a letter from Chase several years ago for her and in the envelope was a second letter for another person who lives about 40 miles away which contained lots of personal information.. We called Chase and got the standard “we take… yadda yadda yadda” We sent the letter to the lady without a return address and a note that Chase sent it to us.

Nope. Just an understanding of the process and how these mailing systems work.

If you think some little old lady is filling and licking the envelopes shut, you are sadly mistaken. They are “spat out” fast – incredibly fast. Sometimes the combination of a machine running warm and envelope glue – plus being bound together in batches afterwards – do not end up with the result anyone wanted.

Consumer advice? If you want to guarantee that you – and only you – get communications and statements from anyone, then sign up for electronic delivery wherever you can.

Back in the day, I got someone else’s canceled checks. I had left the bank statement laying on the desk for a couple of days unopened. The bank called me to see if I had their checks so I opened it and I did. They wanted me to bring them over. I told them it was inconvenient and I could drop them by on Monday afternoon. Then they wanted to know if they could send someone over to get them. “Only if he brings my checks to me.”

Sue them sounds fine, but what are her damages? The individual who received the documents did not, as far as we know, do anything but send the documents to the Colorado woman. There is no indication that he retained or used any of her personal information. It would seem that she suffered no actual damages.

You might make an argument for her suffering emotional distress but, under the facts of this case, it would seem that her damages would be minimal at best.

Do I agree with what Chase did? Of course not, but in any large organization something will occasionally happen. Several years ago my bank (one now merged into another bank) deposited $1000 into my checking account. I notified the bank. It took about three months to track down. It turned out that the deposit was intended for another depositor with the same name. The money was removed from my account and deposited into the proper account.

Mistakes happen. And databases get hacked. While I don’t think I’d like all my stuff ending up in someone’s hands it probably happened to me without my knowledge. Not a defender of Chase per se but unfortunately we’re not all perfect.

I have a GMail account in the format of firstname.lastname@gmail.com. Had it since early beta (around 2004?). This dumbass with the same name as me tries to sign up for GMail in 2010 with the same username.

Chase is the worst in this regard. I opened up a Chase card years ago, and they had my mother’s information on the website when I logged into my account. I was probably at the time around 30 years old, hadn’t lived with my parents in quite a number of years, and have NEVER had a parent on the same credit card/bank account, etc as me. And my mother has never logged into a bank account website in her life.
They couldn’t resolve this, and after about a month, I closed the account, and have never went back.
In my case it was my mother, but there have been way too many instances of Chase giving out someone else’s info to trust them.